Talk:Ryan Dancey

Ryan Dancey here - I'd like to request some changes to this article
Hello Wikipedians!

Since this article was created it now appears in brief next to Google searches for my name and comes up in various other kinds of research people may be doing about me. So I'd like to improve this article to be more accurate.

I'm told that editing one's own wikipedia page is frowned on, and that the best approach is to discuss the suggestions for changes here in Talk. So I'm Talking. :)

Let's start at the top. The article begins "Ryan S. Dancey is a game designer who has worked primarily on role-playing games."

Both of the parts of this statement are not really quite accurate.

I have done game design but I don't consider myself primarily a game designer, but rather a gaming industry executive. My professional career has been spent primarily organizing companies and teams to make games, and developing marketing and community support programs for games.

I have worked on roleplaying games but my career in RPGs only lasted for 3 years a full time focus. Prior to the '98-Y2K period where I worked on D&D, I spent several years making collectible card games, and from 2007 to the present I've been working with massively multiplayer online games.

Ok, on to the next section:

"Ryan Dancey was the owner of a distributor called Ismoedia, Inc., which was helping to fund Legend of the Five Rings (1995), and he joined in on the project."

Not much of this is accurate.

Isomedia (notice the spelling) was founded in 1992 and I was one of five co-cofounders. Isomedia was never a distributor but we did operate RPG International, a direct-response (i.e. mail order and phone order) retail operation for hobby gaming - among several other projects including creating a regional internet service provider and developing a microfiche replacement system for long-term data archiving. Isomedia formed a joint venture with Alderac Entertainment Group in 1995 to create the Legend of the Five Rings collectible card game. I was the primary lead at Isomedia working on the game and was responsible for the decision to create the joint venture and to green-light the project.

"At the end of 1998 the Five Rings group was dissolved as a separate entity, and Dancey became the business head of the roleplaying department at Wizards of the Coast, where he conceived of a third edition of Dungeons & Dragons"

It would be very incorrect to say I "conceived" of the third edition of D&D. Work on what became 3rd Edition had begun at TSR before my involvement. After the acquisition in '97, and during my time focused on integrating Five Rings Publishing Group with Wizards of the Coast, Peter Adkison continued to press the development of a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons. When I became the head of the business unit for tabletop RPGs late in '98, work had progressed to the point of having drafted playtest rules for the new edition and feedback from internal testers was being incorporated into the design. I was charged, on my assumption of the leadership of the team, with developing and executing a plan to revive the tabletop RPG business, and to make the release of a new edition of D&D a centerpiece of that plan.

My initial title when I became the leader of the tabletop RPG team was Dungeons & Dragons Brand Manager. In 1999 I was promoted to the title of Vice President and I was responsible for the tabletop roleplaying game brand & business unit. I remained a VP until my exit.

"Dancey championed Wizards of the Coast's purchased of Last Unicorn Games in 2000, as he saw in them a smaller and more efficient RPG R&D force that he wanted to bring in to compete with Wizards' own RPG staff."

Buying Last Unicorn Games was a multi-pronged strategy. They had the Star Trek license and had been doing good work in the RPG category with that license. They also had a disk-based game using mechanics licensed from Fantasy Flight Games for a Star Trek starship tactical combat game which we really liked. They also had been responsible for the Dune collectible card game which I green-lit at Five Rings Publishing Group and which was brought to market by Wizards of the Coast after the acquisition. Their work on the CCG was being continued with a tabletop RPG that we thought had a lot of potential as well. Last Unicorn's experience working with licensors meant that they had already built a process for submitting materials for outside review and approval and they were based in LA, close to Hollywood and thus conveniently located for lots of potential business meetings. We thought that we could use Last Unicorn to produce a steady stream of licensed RPGs using the D20 system while keeping the team in Seattle focused on Dungeons & Dragons and Star Wars. There was no intention to set the two groups up as competition for each other; they were constituted to do different kinds of work.

"Dancey largely conceived of the Open Gaming License and d20 Trademark License, based on his belief that the true strength of D&D was in its gaming community."

Actually, my belief was in the strength of the D&D Brand. I was convinced that we could license the rules for D&D and create a unifying force to push the industry toward consolidation around the D20 game system while simultaneously succeeding at reviving D&D because the Dungeons & Dragons brand was the more valuable part of the business - not the rules. We relied on the theory of network externalities to sell this concept to the rest of the company. By strengthening the D&D player network by both making a new version of D&D and by getting lots of other designers to produce games and materials compatible with the D20 game system inside the new edition of D&D, we felt we would derive a synergistic effect that would be beneficial to the business as a whole. In my opinion, that's exactly what happened.

"Dancey later moved back to "consultant" status, and was among those laid off by Wizards toward the end of 2002."

At the end of 2000 I decided that my time at the company was going to end. There were going to be significant layoffs and the RPG category was going to be downsized. My direct superior had assigned me away from the RPG team and asked that I assist the sales team on a project to improve our data analysis with the major book distributor that Wizards of the Coast was partnered with. Rather than remain at the company I decided I wanted to create a new startup to develop tools that other companies could use to replicate the success Wizards of the Coast had with its organized play programs. I transitioned out of the company early in 2001, retaining a short-term consulting relationship to help with the release of the D&D Master Tools project and tie up some loose ends.

My startup company, OrganizedPlay, operated full time from 2001 to 2003. We developed tools to support collectible card game tournaments used by several game publishers. We licensed the Living City RPGA Campaign from Wizards of the Coast and built tools to support a "Living" style tabletop RPG system as a prototype for other companies. However we were not able to survive in the post-9/11 recession and the end of the dot-com bubble, and I had essentially wound up the affairs of OrganizedPlay by the end of 2004.

From 2004 to 2007 I worked primarily as a consultant, helping companies create business plans and develop products targeting the hobby gaming market. I also became involved with a Las Vegas based entertainment company headed by Christian Moore, who was the former founder and CEO of Last Unicorn Games.

In 2007 I was recruited to become the Chief Marketing Officer of CCP, hf, an Icelandic video game developer that has offices in Atlanta and Shanghai. I worked at CCP until 2010 when I left the company and started work on my current business, Goblinworks, producing a next-generation fantasy sandbox massively multiplayer roleplaying game.

From 1995 to the present most of my work has been focused on creating great games and great gaming experiences. A partial list of my professional credits includes:

Co-creation - Legend of the Five Rings intellectual property, and design work on the base set and first 5 expansions of the collectible card game of the same name

Design - Battle of Beiden Pass, an introductory product designed to teach players the Legend of the Five Rings system

Executive in charge of production:


 * Star Trek Collectible Dice Game
 * Dune Collectible Card Game
 * Doomtown, the Deadlands Collectible Card Game
 * Legend of the Burning Sands intellectual property and Collectible Card Game
 * Rage: Snake Eyes Collectible Card Game
 * BattleTech: Commander's Edition Collectible Card Game
 * Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game
 * Dark*Matter campaign setting for Alternity
 * 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons products from 1998 to 2000
 * 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons from 2000 to 2001
 * BattleTech: Commander's Edition Collectible Card Game
 * Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game
 * Dark*Matter campaign setting for Alternity
 * 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons products from 1998 to 2000
 * 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons from 2000 to 2001
 * 2nd Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons products from 1998 to 2000
 * 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons from 2000 to 2001
 * 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons from 2000 to 2001
 * 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons from 2000 to 2001

I co-wrote the Hero Builder's Guidebook

I wrote, co-wrote, or edited a number of scenarios for Living City and created the Ruins of Ravens Bluff campaign materials under license from Wizards of the Coast.

I was involved in the creation and initial production of Anachronism the Collectible Card Game from TriKing Games as a consultant

As CMO at CCP Games I oversaw the worldwide sales & marketing teams responsible for the EVE Online MMO, the DUST 514 MMOFPS and the unreleased World of Darkness MMO

As CEO of Goblinworks I wrote the initial design plan for Pathfinder Online and I am responsible for all facets of the game's development and marketing.

I don't know how much biographical information is useful, but here is mine.

I was born in Seattle, Washington October 18 1968. I attended (but did not graduate) Washington State University from '87-89. I am married to Delaina Dancey and I have one child, a daughter named Teela Lorelei Dancey (named after the character in Larry Niven's Ringworld and one of Lazarus Long's clones from Time Enough for Love).

I tend to list my name as "Ryan Scott Dancey" or "Ryan S. Dancey" on professional credits.

Rsdancey (talk) 03:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC) Ryan Scott Dancey
 * Re the name of the article a quick search indicates that you are most widely discussed simply as Ryan Dancey and since there are no other notable  Ryan Danceys with whom you might be confused our article will be under the WP:COMMONNAME. --  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  14:09, 4 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, Ryan, thanks for commenting here!  You've given us a lot to read over; I will try to get to this in the near future.  I will say that I built most of the content for this article from available sources; I think I copied a couple of things from other related articles, and the rest came from Shannon Appelcline's book.  If there are any accuracies in what I wrote, it would therefore either come from my misreading of the source material, or simply because the source had it wrong.  I will try to go over the source material I worked with and compare it with what you say to see which is the case.  If it is the case that the source is wrong, you may want to discuss with Shannon to make sure he has the correct information on you for any further writings.


 * We do our best to rely strictly on published reliable sources; while I know you know the details of your life, and I would not be alone in saying that I trust you to report that accurately, Wikipedia policies do require us (especially in the case of biographies of living people) to base what we write on sources that can in theory be found by anyone. So, if you know of any online sources you can link to, or if you can direct me to any published books, which corroborate the information you state above then I would be happy to add anything to this article that I can cite which is currently not found here. BOZ (talk) 16:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

OK, so responding to Ryan's initial comments, bit by bit, after going back to Shannon Appelcline's book, "Designers & Dragons". I will note that he identifies probably over 100 game designers and industry people as fact checkers, but he does not have your name there – perhaps he should have. ;) You should contact him directly to report any inaccuracies.

First of all, I think we have fixed the lead sentence sufficiently.


 * "Ryan Dancey was the owner of a distributor called Ismoedia, Inc., which was helping to fund Legend of the Five Rings (1995), and he joined in on the project."

I corrected the spelling of Isomedia, first off. His book does call Isomedia "a distributor" and identifies you as its "owner", stating that the company was "helping to fund the game"; so I included these as-is in this article. Would it be sufficient to make this change to say "Dancey was part of Isomedia Inc, which was helping to fund..."?


 * "At the end of 1998 the Five Rings group was dissolved as a separate entity, and Dancey became the business head of the roleplaying department at Wizards of the Coast, where he conceived of a third edition of Dungeons & Dragons"

Appelcline's book does say that you "conceived [...] of a third edition of Dungeons & Dragons". Would it be enough to change that to "became involved in the development of"?


 * "Dancey championed Wizards of the Coast's purchased of Last Unicorn Games in 2000, as he saw in them a smaller and more efficient RPG R&D force that he wanted to bring in to compete with Wizards' own RPG staff."

The book says, "Dancey was one of the forces championing Wizards of the Coast's purchase of Last Unicorn Games, which occurred around the time of third edition’s release, in 2000 [...] Dancey saw a smaller and more efficient RPG R&D force at Last Unicorn and he wanted to bring them in to compete with Wizard’s own RPG force." I'm not sure here what you were looking to be changed here, unless you meant the last part about competing staffs? I am assuming the author here had either read somewhere that someone said you wanted the staffs to compete, or that he had interviewed someone who said that, or maybe he just inferred that based on what others had said. I can just remove the "compete" part?


 * "Dancey largely conceived of the Open Gaming License and d20 Trademark License, based on his belief that the true strength of D&D was in its gaming community."

This calls for a bigger quote from the book: "Dancey's most important innovation was without a doubt the Open Gaming Licence (and the somewhat more restrictive d20 Trademark Licence). It originated in Dancey's belief that the strength of D&D was not in its game system but instead in its gaming community – the set of all the people who actually played the game. This supported his belief in an axiom presented by Skaff Elias, who had been at Wizards working on Magic since the early days. Elias' 'Skaff Effect' suggested that other companies only enhanced the success of the RPG market leader, which was now Wizards. Yet another Dancey theorem, that the proliferation of game systems weakened the RPG industry, also influenced his planning. When you put that all together, there was an obvious answer: let other publishers create supplements for Dungeons & Dragons." I think this part can be reworked a bit better given your input.


 * "Dancey later moved back to "consultant" status, and was among those laid off by Wizards toward the end of 2002."

From Appelcline's book: "In many ways, 2002 was the end of a (very brief ) era. Ryan Dancey – the founder of the Open Gaming Licence that was still transforming Wizards and the industry – was among those laid off at Wizards toward the end of the year. He had already moved back to 'consultant' status but now that last tie was gone." I don't think there was anything inaccurate here, but thanks for all of the clarification.

As I said above, if you can direct me to any sources which I can use to cite anything else you mention above, please do so and I will not hesitate to build this article further. BOZ (talk) 00:56, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if I'm doing this right (editing this entry) so forgive me if I screw up the formatting.

""Dancey was part of Isomedia Inc, which was helping to fund...""

""became involved in the development of""

Yup, that's fine.

I'll try to find some additional sources for you to cite. Unfortunately my time at FRPG and Wizards just barely predated the period where everything that got written was on a website. There's a lot of content in paper magazines that will never be digitized. :)

I believe there may be some info in the Anniversary of D&D book Wizards published some years ago. I have no idea to what extent that's available online, and my copy is in cold storage so I don't have ready access to it.

There might be some press releases and things locatable on the Wayback machine. Does Wikipedia permit links to stuff in the Internet Archive?

Rsdancey (talk) 18:41, 6 March 2014 (UTC) Ryan Scott Dancey
 * Wikipedia does not give value to press releases in any form, but published paper only content is acceptable if it meets the WP:RS requirements and can be appropriately cited V. --  TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom  03:02, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Time with GAMA
There isn't any mention of Ryan Dancey's time with GAMA, Game Manufacturers Association, or his resignation for "penetration of the board's confidential communications Is this notable?

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/5416.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.8.27.174 (talk) 20:47, 24 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes it's notable, and should be mentioned. But any addition must include reliable sources per WP:BLP. oknazevad (talk) 01:34, 28 June 2017 (UTC)